Do Volunteers Get Paid? Stipends, Reimbursements, and Taxes

Volunteers do not get paid a wage, but they can receive several kinds of payments without losing volunteer status: reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs, a modest nominal fee, and, in a few federally funded national service programs, a living stipend. The line matters. Once payments start to look like wages, federal law treats the person as an employee entitled to at least the minimum wage.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a volunteer performs services for a public agency or nonprofit for civic, charitable, religious, or humanitarian reasons, freely and without expectation of compensation.¹ Volunteers at nonprofits typically serve part-time and do not displace paid staff or perform the duties paid workers would otherwise handle.² When those conditions hold, the payments described below stay on the volunteer side of the line.

Payments a Volunteer Can Receive

Expense Reimbursements

An organization can reimburse a volunteer for actual out-of-pocket costs such as uniforms, local travel, and meals eaten while serving, without affecting volunteer status.¹ The IRS treats these reimbursements as non-taxable when they run through an accountable plan: the expense has a genuine business connection, the volunteer documents it with receipts on time, and any excess advance is returned.³ If the organization pays more than the volunteer actually spent, the excess becomes taxable income.

Training reimbursements sit in the same safe category. Tuition, transportation, meals, books, and supplies tied to volunteer training do not convert the volunteer into an employee.¹

Driving for charity has its own rate. In 2026, a volunteer using a personal vehicle for charitable service can be reimbursed at 14 cents per mile, plus parking and tolls.⁴ That rate is set by statute and does not move each year the way the business mileage rate does.

Nominal Fees and Stipends

Public agencies can pay a volunteer a nominal fee as long as it is not a substitute for wages and not tied to productivity. The regulation sets no fixed dollar cap. What matters is context: how far the volunteer travels, how much time and effort the role takes, whether the person is on call around the clock or only for set shifts, and whether the service is occasional or year-round.⁵ A volunteer firefighter who receives a small per-call payment can still be a volunteer under this standard.

Whether a payment is nominal or compensatory depends on the total amount in the context of the overall economic realities. Payments structured to resemble wages, such as hourly rates, regular pay periods, or amounts approaching what a paid employee would earn for the same work, put the arrangement at risk of reclassification. If the person is reclassified as an employee, the organization can face back-pay obligations and tax liability.⁵

National Service Programs That Pay a Stipend

A few federally funded programs are built around paying volunteers a living stipend. Participants are treated as volunteers or members, not employees, but they receive regular payments meant to cover basic living costs during their term.

AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps VISTA

AmeriCorps members serve in education, disaster response, environmental, and community development roles. A member who completes a full-time term of roughly 1,700 hours earns a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, which can be applied to college tuition or qualified student loan repayment. During service, many members also receive a modest living allowance. AmeriCorps VISTA members, whose work focuses on anti-poverty efforts, receive a living allowance that varies by county to reflect the local cost of living.⁶ These allowances cover basic needs and sit well below what a salaried employee in a comparable role would earn.

Peace Corps

Peace Corps Volunteers serve abroad for about 27 months and receive a monthly living allowance calibrated to the cost of living in their host country, intended to let them live at roughly the level of the local population. After completing service, returned volunteers receive a $10,000 readjustment allowance and become eligible for non-competitive hiring for federal government jobs.⁷

Tax Treatment of What Volunteers Receive

Cash payments to a volunteer are generally taxable income. The IRS has said that giving cash to a volunteer, even a small amount, brings the same reporting and withholding rules that apply to any other worker.⁸ For 2026, an organization that pays $2,000 or more to a non-employee individual must report those payments on Form 1099-NEC, up from the $600 threshold used in prior years.⁹

Reimbursements handled through an accountable plan are the main exception. As long as the volunteer documents actual expenses and returns any excess, those payments are not reported as income and are not subject to withholding.³

Deducting Your Own Volunteer Expenses

If you itemize, you can deduct unreimbursed out-of-pocket costs from volunteering for a qualified organization, typically a 501(c)(3). The costs must be unreimbursed, directly connected to the service, and not personal. Deductible items include:

Driving at 14 cents per mile for charitable service, plus parking and tolls
Airfare, rail, lodging, and meals when traveling away from home for a qualified organization, provided there is no significant vacation element
The cost and upkeep of uniforms not suitable for everyday wear
Supplies purchased specifically for volunteer duties

You cannot deduct the value of your time or services, only actual money spent.¹⁰

Where Unpaid Volunteering Is Not Allowed

The FLSA’s volunteer provisions cover public agencies and, under Department of Labor guidance, nonprofits. They do not cover commercial businesses.¹ A for-profit company that accepts free labor for tasks its paid staff would normally do owes those workers at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. A signed waiver or an agreement to work for free does not change that.¹¹ A business that misclassifies workers as volunteers can be sued for unpaid wages, an equal amount in liquidated damages, and attorney fees.¹²

Unpaid internships at for-profits are judged under a primary beneficiary test with seven factors, including whether the internship offers training similar to a school setting, whether it is tied to academic credit, and whether the intern’s work displaces or complements paid staff. No single factor decides the question. If the company is the primary beneficiary rather than the intern, the intern is an employee entitled to wages.¹³

You Cannot Volunteer to Do Your Own Job

Even at a public agency or nonprofit, an existing employee cannot volunteer to perform the same type of work they are already paid to do for the same employer. A firefighter cannot volunteer as a firefighter for the same agency, and a nurse at a state hospital cannot volunteer to provide nursing services at another facility run by the same agency.¹ The same rule applies at nonprofits.² The rule stops employers from turning uncompensated overtime into “volunteering.”

Different work is fine. A city accountant can volunteer to coach a youth basketball league run by the same municipality, because coaching is not accounting. What matters is whether the volunteer duties overlap with the paid ones.

1
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 553 Subpart B – Volunteers
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 14A – Non-Profit Organizations and the Fair Labor Standards Act
3
Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations – Compensation of Officers
4
IRS. 2026 Standard Mileage Rates
5
eCFR. 29 CFR 553.106 – Payment of Expenses, Benefits, or Fees
6
AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps VISTA Living Allowance Rates by County
7
Peace Corps. Volunteer Benefits
8
IRS.gov. Employment Tax Issues Important to All Tax-Exempt Organizations
9
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), Employers Tax Guide
10
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526 – Charitable Contributions
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 71 – Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act